Draft TWWHA Tourism Master Plan

Draft TWWHA Tourism Master Plan

The draft Tourism Master Plan for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) was released for public comment in March 2020.

The drafting of the Tourism Master Plan responds to one of the key recommendations of the joint IUCN / ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring Mission in 2015 that followed concerns regarding the then-draft TWWHA Management Plan expressed to the World Heritage Committee.

The TNPA and other conservation groups declined to participate in the initial consultation process on the Master Plan on the basis that it is not a stand-alone plan to guide the future of tourism in the TWWHA, it can only influence tourism policy in the TWWHA within the parameters set by the TWWHA Management Plan 2016. The management plan reflects the state government’s policy of ‘unlocking our national parks’ rather than any serious attempt to strike a considered balance between conservation and preservation, so there is little scope for a subsidiary document such as this Master Plan to correct this, even though it includes some potentially useful material such as the recommended assessment guidelines.